Zen Garden
by Winona Flammery
Summary: As the wind changed its course, now blowing from behind, it brought a strand of bright pink hair into the boy's field of vision, making his heart skip a beat and causing his lungs to lose their function for a moment.  "Maaya?"  *spoilers*


**Zen Garden**

The last thing Aki could remember was closing his eyes and waiting for the muddiness caused by loss of conscience to take him. The blade had been sharp; one cut to the wrists, and the blood had streamed peacefully down his arms and muddled up on the floor. The razor, which he'd held so gently and lovingly a minute ago, now laid dead and cold beside his limp arm.

At first, a sharp pain had hit him like a flame flaring up, starting small; escalating to a tremendous size, but the pain had dumbed down as he sank deeper and deeper into himself, losing all consciousness of his surroundings. _I'm gonna die_, he'd silently thought to himself, quirking the corners of his mouth upwards, smiling. Peace played on his mind, before the last bits of his self was engulfed in a white nothingness.

_Nothingness_

_Nothingne…_

_Nothing…_

_No…_

A breath of warm, fresh air caught his hair and forced him to open his eyes. _Where am I? _His eyes darted back and forth, at first not seeing anything, but then his vision slowly cleared.

Taking in the sights, his breath stopped in his throat, caught between a sigh of disbelief and a sob of disappointment. The grass underneath him softened beneath his fingers. Above him, the leaves of a maple tree were rustling in the wind. Green bushes and shrubs complimented and encircled a huge pond, the deep blue glittering in the sunlight, the wind making small ripples on the surface. Limestone slabs lead the way to a small pavilion; its paper walls carefully decorated with detailed paintings. The green of the trees showed just the faintest taint of yellow, telling of autumn's embrace.

…_a Japanese garden?_

The view stunned him in all its glory, but still only one thought kept entering his mind;

_I didn't die? I'm still alive?_

Maybe he should have rather been pondering where he was, or how he came there, but this single thought hit him over and over; rolling in like a tsunami, interrupting and refusing the entrance of anything else:

_I didn't die? I'm still alive?_

He closed his eyes in despair, and was just about to lift and bury his face in his hands, when he felt a soft stroke against his strands of ebony hair. He'd been too astonished to notice it before, but something was faintly stroking his hair. Not the wind, but a different feeling entirely.

_Hands? _

The body heat of them planted itself along his skin and warmed him to the marrow of his bones. As the wind changed its course, now blowing from behind, it brought a strand of bright pink hair into the boy's field of vision, making his heart skip a beat and causing his lungs to lose their function for a moment.

"Maaya?"

The disbelief in his voice made the air thicken around him.

"I was wondering when you'd notice me." The all-too-familiar voice from behind made his whole torso turn around at light speed, his vision finding its way to a face he'd never thought he'd see again, its lips quirked into the familiar smile he'd always loved so much. His boyfriend's warm face made Aki melt inside out.

Suddenly, Aki's smile vanished.

"But… you're dead, aren't you?" Aki remembered it all too well.

"_Maaya!" The younger boy ran forward, clinging to his beaten up boyfriend, tears streaming from his eyes. The assaulters had run off, and though he'd heard their mutterings about those "filthy faggots", he couldn't remember their faces. Fuck! "It's okay… I'll be fine." The older boy's voice had already grown faint, and his words became harder to believe by the second. Aki's vision was too blurred up by the water from his eyes, he couldn't see a thing. An ambulance sounded in the distance._

"You didn't make it… or was it all a dream?"

"Nuh-uh, last I checked I was pretty dead." A melancholy smile touched Maaya's face.

"So, I'm dead too then…"

The older boy didn't answer him.

"It's pretty nice here, isn't it?" Maaya changed the subject. "I created it."

"You what?"

"I mean it. When I came here, it was all white. Then I wish for something, and poof, there it is. I've got a pretty good eye for aesthetics, haven't I?" The words rolled off Maaya's tongue in a mix of teasing laughs and pride.

"It's very peaceful."

Aki had reshuffled himself, laying his head in Maaya's lap, curling a long strand of pink hair around his finger.

"Are you alone here?" since he had arrived, Aki had not seen a single soul but them.

"Apparently I am, since you don't seem to be counting yourself as "somebody"."

"You know what I mean!"

"I've not seen anybody but us."

"Then will you let me stay here with you?"

At Aki's question Maaya's face became engulfed by a dark shadow, however, the shadow disappeared almost as fast as it'd arrived.

"Aki…"

Maaya's hands suddenly gripped the younger boy's body, pulling him up to the same height as himself, then proceeded to gripping both sides of Aki's face and bringing their lips gently together. With his tongue he pushed the lips of his ebony haired boyfriend wide open. He could feel how his kiss was reciprocated, though no matter how close they were together, there was a feeling like a barrier between them, a melancholy that prevented them both from enjoying the kiss to its fullest. After a long time, they pulled away.

"Aki…" Maaya said again, tears starting to fill his eyes. Aki watched worried as his older boyfriend brusquely brushed the tears away with the back of his hand. Maaya almost never cries, he silently thought to himself.

"Aki… no matter how much I want you here, you can't stay. You're not dead yet."

The ebony haired boy's head jerked up, his eyes showing true fear. A couple of cranes flew up from their hiding place, the sound of their wings making an alarmingly high noise.

"Say what?"

"You're not dead yet. I don't know why or what happened, but I feel there's life still in you. You're already starting to slip away from here."

_Live your life Aki._

"Live your life for both of us. It's far too precious to throw away."

He sat staring at his boyfriend in disbelief, but it didn't take long before his vision became blurry. The colours started to melt together into one colourless mass. He was becoming dizzy, yet he felt that his hand was still tugging at something. A glance down earned him a glimpse of a tress of bright pink, caught in the palm of his hand. That pink was the only thing still vivid. His head swirled, but far off he could hear the whisper of a faint voice; "I still love you, you know."

"I still love you too," he whispered for an answer…

His eyes were slammed open only to be greeted by a blindingly white room. White ceiling, white floor, white walls. The intensity of it all blinded him, and he knew at once that he hated it. Looking down at his hands, he could see white bandages engulfing his wrists. A hospital. This had to be a hospital.

That tipped him over the edge, and torrents of tears started streaming from his eyes. He wasn't in the garden. Maaya was nowhere to be seen.

_It was all a dream. It was all just a fucking dream!_

He wanted to go back to that dream.

He tried. He tried in every way possible. But no matter how hard he tried, the dream was gone. Irrevocably, eternally gone. All he had left now was the sensation of the kiss, still hot on his lips. The last blurry memory of his boyfriend's smiling face. And, only visible to those who looked really closely; a strand of bright pink hair, caught between the fingers of his right hand.

_I still love you, you know…_

The torrent of tears seemed endless.


End file.
